ИСТИНА

The end of the 18th–19th saw appearance of a new form of traditional fairs and art exhibitions – large-scale exhibitions, presenting national and international developments in trade, industry, agriculture, science and technology. These exhibitions were held in different cities and usually special pavilions were constructed for them, e.g. the famous Chrystal Palace for the Great 1851 Exhibition in London. They were a new event and no wonder caused concern and dismay among population, only to remember a proverbial Colonel Sibthorp, who before the Great Exhibition frightened Londoners with awful financial, social, and aesthetic outcomes of the exhibition and advised persons residing near Hyde Park, where the exhibition was to be held, “to keep a sharp lookout after their silver forks and spoons and servant maids”. Great Moscow scientific exhibitions (Ethnographical, 18674 Polytechnical, 1872; Anthropological, 1879), organized by Society of Friends of Natural Sciences, Anthropology and Ethnography and its leader, professor of zoology of Moscow University Anatoly Bogdanov, were accompanied by similar scandals. But while Colonel Sibthorp in his struggle against Prince Albert’s project expounded views of “ultra-protestants” and protectionists, in Russia the situation was quite reverse: Bogdanov belonged to the “right-wing” university professors and criticism of his exhibitions, aimed at popularization of scientific knowledge, was often initiated by liberal intelligentsia. In the present paper I want to analyze scandals around Moscow scientific exhibitions, especially the Anthropological one (Bogdanov is considered to be the founder of physical anthropology in Russia) and to reveal the reasons why in this case liberals had changed places with conservatives.